Veil in Islam

29.12.06

The whole idea of veil in Islam seems to be to protect women (and men!) from lustful gaze and more. This appears to be based on the assumption that everyone out there is full of lust. Is this why the Quran has permitted 4 wives a man?

Tramway in Calcutta

19.12.06 Though I have not been to Kolkata, I should imagine that if the tramway is left intact in at least the artery road of Kolkata and cars and busses banned on that road - the number of trams and frequency could increase - it will benefit both the passengers, particularly tourists, as well as the City centre by leaving it free of pollution. In the bargain, good old Calcutta would continue to live.

27.08.06 Celebrating centenaries are natural because memories of things kicked-off a hundred years ago and having gripped imaginations during the period, or at least in some phase of it or other, deserves to be recalled for us to revive the spirit of its momentous climaxes. So to celebrate Vande Mataram's centenary is natural enough. But should there be forced participation? No, particularly not in India, with its culture of freedom.

Presidency

However good Dr. Abdul Kalam is, and I am his fan alright, I feel that our great nation has an endless line of brilliant people to project as the President of India. However, since the President is selected and elected by the political class, we normally get party hacks. Probably it is this fear that makes us not want to let go of Dr. Abdul Kalam, for we know a great person when we see one. I hope a person of the calibre of Narayana Murthy of Infosys or Dr. Kurien of Anand or Nanaji Deshmukh of the RSS (if he is healthy enough) is nominated. Otherwise I too would rather have Dr. Abdul Kalam.

Peter Sinniah

Shashi Kapoor smk.co@hotmail.com Wednesday, May 24, 2006 12:25 PM peter_sinniah@yahoo.com Re: New comment on All Ye La Sallians Dear Peter, How prompt you are. My blog id is: www.kaikulath.blogspot.com I have written a lot of carp in it, but at least it can help you to decipher the kind of nut I am! I can make out that you are a pragmatist and would therefore measure success in terms of material gains. But I have no use for anything material. I have for ages been keeping away from wherever there is a show of material power - like marriages, parties etc. Rather than 'doing' as an indication of how alive we are, I am into 'undoing' to regain my original heritage - freedom. Ah... spiritual mumbo jumbo, I can hear you say. Maybe so, because finally the words we use to express ourselves are itself so limited. In spite of what I am, if you think you can still have some 'return' from a relationship with me, do continue to write sometimes. Otherwise, we again evaporate into the mists of memory. Love, Venu Venu, I am not really as materialistic as you think I am. Having lost a brother when he was 20 (remember Raymond John) and having come close to death the year after his death, I leave my fate in the hands of God. I could have become more than what I am but tend to also float along struggling to maintain a family of 3 kids and a wife. The only luxury I have is my French Citroen car (second hand) and have not had the luck to buy a house yet. We should explore what we could do together in the our golden ages. Send me some pictures of you, your family, the palce you stay etc. Take care Peter

venu, my apologies and i am thankful u wrote me cos i lost ur e-mail address.... i have lost my password for the blog so need sometime before i post your item whats your blog url best regards peter

Dear Peter, We had communicated via e-mail some years back and suddenly the communication came to a dead end. You said at that time you had some financial difficulties and I could understand that we needed to have a break. Now again I communicate through this blogsphere. Since we last communicated I have become more of a recluse. So sometimes I stay back in the office after work and then I have a cave all to myself (eerie with not a soul in the whole huge building and all quiet). I suppose on such nights I shall be able to blog and communicate with you and all the good folks whom I had the honour to study with and be taught by. If you get on to my blog, you might get to know my mind and how crazy I have become since I left La Salle in 69 and Malaysia in 70. May God bless you, Peter, for your labour of love in keeping the memories of class of 69 as a beacon light for the rest of us to reflect on some of the most gorgeous moments in our life. Love, Venu Publish this comment. Reject this comment. Moderate comments for this blog. Posted by Venu to La Salle Brickfields at 5/22/2006 10:46:27 PM

P.M.C. Menon and 70 kilos of gold

Menon's 70 kgs. of gold as an offering to Guruvayoorappan is an affair between God and his devotee. What has it to do with us? Nevertheless, since the temple and its affairs are within the public domain, comments on the acts of devotees are inevitable. Oftimes, commentary or criticism can clarify or bring out the moral lessons of an action. Firstly, thulabharam is a ritual that has been extant since the temple was built and the ritual exists in many other temples too. A devotee offering thulabharam is the natural outcome of the devotee's devotion to his diety. But when amounts involved are unusually high, invariably the public wonders whether the amount spent could not have been spent more wisely. But how could something earmarked for one occasion be used for another? For other needs, other funds - that's all as far as the devotee is concerned. Therefore I feel we ought to in no way criticise Mr. Menon for what he did. It is well within his right to have done so and may Guruvayoorappan bless him for that. But the 70 kgs. of gold, once donated, becomes the property of the temple and at this level, the question should be about the use the temple puts this gold to. Here public questioning must be pursued with vigor. A temple belongs to its devotees. If devotees are kept in the dark about any aspect of the temple management, then that temple would before long be in the hands of vested interests. This we should be cautious against and it should be in this background that Mr. Menon's 70 kg. of gold is talked about.

[This is an e-mail I sent to Terry of Alaya, after reading a talk by Ishvar.] Dear Terry, I have read this, the second message of H.H. Ishvara I've got since joining. I would tend to disagree with one point - that it's natural to have needs. Needs are what we have all the time and thereby our great feeling of inadequacy. Is it possible to be in a situation of having no needs (except at the subsistence level, of course)? I think the whole spiritual pursuit is to come to a situation where we are free from needs. And this is achieved not by any doing, but by a simple awakening to the truth that we are perfect. I say this much as a comment in passing and not to begin an argument or have a debate. As I keep reading Ishvara’s newsletters and maybe offering my comments, I’m sure clarity would evolve. Love,Venu

Continuum

[This is my first piece in Writers.Com] All of us have a life to live! This writer may inadvertently be complicating matters. But patient reader that you are, dear reader, you would realise as you go on, that I am seeking to simplify our living by asking you to meditate with me a single thought. THERE IS NOTHING TO DO. Well, its that simple. We are free. Free to do or not to do, with no doing impinging on our freedom. Dear reader, I believe that all our problems are in effect experienced by us by the restlessness of our mind. If we can get our mind to be restful, hey presto, all our problems shall vanish. So the question of all question is, how do we make our mind restful. I would like to share a technique with you. All you have to do, to make your mind restful, is to talk to yourself. Well, not just in bits and pieces, which we do anyway, filled up, mostly, with fantasies. No, we have to seek, without any effort, to simply keep talking to ourself without a break. The most amazing thing is that whenever we are at it, this talking to ourself (silently, of course) we right away touch the ultimate. It is not that you talk and talk for ages and then you get some results. The moment you start talking to yourself till the moment there is a break, even if it was only a minute, you have actually touched eternity. You will before long realise that there is nothing else to do except talk to yourself (can anything be easier and more effortless?) that you seek to talk without there ever being a break. I have called this process CONTINUUM. The key points to note are that we should speak using impeccable language. The language should be calm and soothing. You will realise too, before long, that CONTINUUM helps you to become detached. You know that you can simply be a witness to all that is going on and be in a grandstand watching the spectacle of life. And greatest of all, your life starts becoming spontaneous. I end here not because I do not have more to write but because I think my dear reader should soak in what I have written (if he finds it sensible, of course) and favour me with a feedback. Then, we can continue.

Monism and Islam

Dear Sir, I read your article "Pantheistic Monism and Naturalism" in "Islam on-line" and think it is very logical and well written. I have the following query. Please favour me with an answer. If Islam teaches that the Creator and his Creation are separate and a Muslim worships Allah, knowing Allah to be absolutely separate from him, then is the Muslim not in practice worshiping an idol? For is not that which is separate from oneself an idol - beheld to be something outside of oneself? Only our own ultimate self we are not able to behold because there is no seer and seen dichotomy. When we reach that stage the worshiper becomes the worshiped. All duality ends. Does not idol worship end only when we reach this stage or awaken to this stage? Awaiting to hear from you. Regards K. Venugopal Mumbai

All the world's one family

[This is a what I intended to paste as a blog comment to a person who wrote rather idealistically about everyone going beyond their limited circles and holding hands as members of one single family and all that. This comment could not be pasted there so I am pasting it here.]

I am with you absolutely in the spirit of what you say. But aren't all of us different? For such an idealistic situation as you wish for to occur, all of us must be of the same temperament. Do you envisage everyone in the world simultaneously becoming alike right away? Till such a situation comes to a pass, if ever it does, we have to hold on to our individual cherished ideals without, of course, seeking to force it upon anyone while at the same time recognizing the right of others to hold on to their cherished ideals. In other words, living and letting live. What must be fought against are transgressions of sacred spaces of every individual and community.

Soul

When we say the soul of man, we mean the essense of man. Soul is not a thing in man. Is there something like, say, the soul of a stone? Yes, if we consider what is the essense of a stone. In the end, the essense of everything must be the same thing. Because the less coarse a thing is, the more pervasive it is and the most subtle of all things is the thing that prevades everywhere and that is the essense of everything and that is God. So everything is God - in its essense everything is because in essense there is nothing else.